Nowadays, almost everybody is on internet and especially on social media. But did you ever think about the fact that using those social media platforms can influence the way your brain is wired? Nowadays, people are walking around with their heads glued to their smartphone screen and they communicate with their friends through Facebook or Twitter. That's why it's not really surprising that we question ourselves about this.
Well, the team at TollFreeForwarding thought about it too. In the infographic below, you will discover how social media rearranges your brain and how the internet can become addictive. Let's face it, many of us can't spend more than five minutes without checking our smartphone and when we do, we spend far too much time on it as opposed to what we would like. And the same goes with any devices with internet or social media access.
In fact, because of the addiction factor, it seems that tweeting for 10 minutes elevates your oxytocin levels as much as 13% in your blood and that creates good feelings that can lead to psychological addiction. That's why we feel so safe and calm when we use social media platforms. Only 5 hours of surfing the net can change the way our brain is configured. That's powerful stuff!
When we check in on social media, we produce adrenaline and this hormone is what makes it so addictive. The social media effect is so big that the attention span of internet users went from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2013. By the way, just to put the information in perspective, the attention span a goldfish is 9 seconds.
Yes, social media is a good way of communicating, sharing our lives with others and see what's going on with the world. But maybe we should think about the effect of internet on our brain and measure the impact that its usage has on us, before we all turn into crazed internet addicts.
Your Brain On Social - An infographic by the team at TollFreeForwarding.com |
Photo credit: miss karen / Foter / CC BY